Some of us want to live with less, but we carry a fear of minimalism that prevents us from making the changes we want to make.

I went to the post office the other day to post six items I’d sold on eBay. The items in question used to belong to my Mum. She died earlier this year, very suddenly, at the age of 68. It was exactly 1 month before her birthday. My mum lived a life that was complicated and she kept a lot of things. Minimalism wasn’t something that Mum would have wanted to do. And of course that is not a problem – we all walk our own paths.

Her flat was rented and I had four weeks to clear out her possessions, most of which I took home because I couldn’t deal with sorting through them one by one in the weeks following her death.

In 2003, I started a journey of simple living, although I didn’t realise that was what it was at the time. Fifteen years on (and it’s been a bumpy ride!) I finally got my blogging act together. After several neglected attempts I’ve created this simple living blog so I can share my journey and connect with others doing the same.

Going back to 2003, my Dad had discovered a website called eBay. He’d been selling some things out of his home and garage. I signed up too. Then, my brother and I started looking for things to sell.

That was the beginning of discovering the joy in un-peeling the layers of stuff we accumulate in our lives. In removing all the physical badges of who we are and finding ourselves naked and vulnerable – and neglected – underneath it all.